


three reasons to unfold

by fingersfallingupwards



Series: body language [1]
Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: 1974 Queen, Body Image, Body Worship, Character Study, Hand Jobs, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, M/M, POV Multiple, Polyamory, Rutting, Slightly - Freeform, Unreliable Narrator, conniving freddie, crop tops, freddie is a chubby chaser so, misguided but well-meaning boys, no beta we die like roger's rap career, polyqueen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:47:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28360386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fingersfallingupwards/pseuds/fingersfallingupwards
Summary: There is something disappointing in glancing over Roger and not seeing the streaks of skin leading up his chest. That careless expression of free love, still looking the way music sounded in the 60s. Brazen.Roger stops wearing crop tops after being told to suck it in during a photo shoot.Freddie, Brian, and John can hardly be blamed for the actions they take to correct this imbalance in the universe, really.
Relationships: Brian May/Freddie Mercury, Brian May/Roger Taylor, Freddie Mercury/Roger Taylor, John Deacon/Brian May, John Deacon/Brian May/Freddie Mercury/Roger Taylor, John Deacon/Freddie Mercury, John Deacon/Roger Taylor
Series: body language [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2076948
Comments: 32
Kudos: 40





	three reasons to unfold

**Author's Note:**

> this fun fic was started based off this [post](https://quirkysubject.tumblr.com/post/637874325350989824/myfairyqueen-queen-mid-70spost) and its immaculate tags u can see in mobile. thanks to [quirkysubject](https://quirkysubject.tumblr.com/) for letting me use the inspiration!
> 
> unbeta'd due to levels of self-indulgence but gratitude for [yasmamamercury](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_1/pseuds/yasmamamercury) for poly advice!

+

Critique is inescapable in the music business. Freddie is quite a connoisseur of critique in that he adores doling it out. Preferably over a magazine with Roger curled up on one side and John quietly smirking on the other. They make a three-pronged stab at the trite, tacky bands in music magazines with Brian’s distracted hums and tuning providing the backing track.

Critique pointed at Freddie though… well, he cleaves it into two simple categories. There is the useful critique, and the pointless— otherwise put, the critique that comes from Brian, John, and Roger (and even that has its moments), and the critique that comes from the bevy of outsiders who would rather grind them out for mere spectacle.

It’s a fool who pays mind to Rolling Stone (“unoriginal and floundering”) and any well-meaning, arrogant musician who thinks they might do it better. No critic knows what Freddie does, that nobody drives the obsessive perfectionism of their craft the way the four of them do. Each aspect of lyric, stage design, and promotion is individually sculpted and debated into fine fragments before they are satisfied. None of them know how to pull their hands off the lever of control, and it’s unsightly and bruising on occasion, but it makes magnificence. To have three people care as much as Freddie does about making a _show_ is electrifying, really. Freddie wouldn’t change one jot.

So, they accept advice from outsiders, (maybe, sparingly, depending on who) but critique is a different beast altogether.

They certainly don’t accept it from a one-off photographer’s assistant who shades his spotty face from the lights, smirks, and says,

“Can you suck it in a bit, Roger? I don’t think a night at the pub is the look we’re going for.”

Freddie’s eyes zap to the assistant. The impudent, foolish assistant who just critiqued them, tried to tell _them_ what look they’re going for. Who suggested that Roger isn’t it? Is he even allowed to hold the camera? Are they paying for his misguided insight?! Freddie has an array of vitriol ready to dance off his tongue when it’s stilled by Roger’s laughter.

He only realizes that he, Brian, and John are _all_ glaring at the poor sod when they meet eyes and he sees the tension Roger tries to disperse with his smile.

“Sorry, bit of the bloat from lunch.”

Freddie’s eyes slip down Roger’s torso to the short, cropped top. His lower stomach pokes out ever so slightly, venturesome. Freddie brushed against it earlier while making tea, a startle of warmth and raw skin. He’d only just resisted following the supple curve disappearing into low-riding trousers with his fingertips. Even now, the sight entices the eye even lower… Freddie moves his attention to Roger’s stomach again but doesn’t find it any different than it usually is. It’s a pleasant flash of skin, soft but inviting. Roger’s weight goes up and down more than the rest of them although often the only sign is the warm press of his stomach. A stomach that pulls under the shadow of his top as he obligingly sucks in a breath for this greasy teenager.

But Roger laughed, and if he’d rather play it off, Freddie will let him… even as his tongue flicks, sour and unsatisfied.

He hears a sucked breath and Roger’s bursting chuckles as John pulls his stomach in and poses like a muscle man. Brian immediately falls in line, puffing out his chest and comparing his flex against John’s. The head photographer laughs and snaps photos of their posturing and ponsing and Freddie makes sure to smile impishly at the assistant, sharpening the cut of his dark eyes on him.

“Do fix the angle on that light,” Freddie orders, throwing back his hair as they finish their fun. “We’re going for drama, not tragedy.” In a poor sotto voce, adds, “If he gathers the difference, poor dear.”

Roger really laughs then, not the way he might disperse his own discomfort, but when he simply can’t help himself. John grins and Brian curates his reluctant amusement and Freddie knows it’s finally perfect. Or it should be…

Roger tugs the front of his shirt forward over his stomach and Freddie bites down a frown.

+

Brian’s mind spins logically, if not always efficiently. Perhaps too much brainpower is devoted to the perilous uncertainty of the earth’s position, helplessly spiraling through space and unprepared for imminent collision… and perhaps he thinks overmuch and anxiously about sex and his own frustrating desperation for it. Even though the four of them have made a strange, looping path that leads them to each other in hotels and dressing rooms, it still doesn’t quiet the steady workings of Brian’s mind.

Still, some over-stepping, above-himself (Freddie’s words) photographer’s assistant is a blip on the radar of their busy lives. Brian has quite put it out of his mind. There is a disturbance that echoes from the event though, and Brian’s busy brain works to piece it together amid their other business.

Admittedly, it takes him a couple of weeks to gather something’s gone wrong because it only echoes in absence. They still attend photoshoots and the increasingly futile meetings with their managers. They still slip into each other, unbuckled belts and breathlessness, half-irritable and half-indulgent. They’re an ongoing collision, some accident that Brian can’t trace the cause of… though he rather blames John.

Recently though, despite the easy sex, there’s a reserved air. Something Brian finally tracks to Roger. Roger, who usually splays out on the couch, all but spilling out of his trousers and shirt and welcoming anyone who steps between his legs. Roger who cups Brian’s cock whenever he’s over-serious. Roger who always pulls closer and pushes harder in every encounter like a magnet who can’t help his own gravity.

That same Roger who now crosses his legs and folds his arms, who hesitates on the edge of the bed instead of leaping on and possibly jamming his elbow into Brian in the process. That irritating man demurs.

Brian has a sinking suspicion it has to do with the photographer.

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Freddie proclaims while on his third vodka tonic. “All week I’ve been saying this!”

“You haven’t!” Brian protests. He imagines he would have remembered that. Although Freddie talks quite a bit…

“I have! But you haven’t been listening in the slightest.”

“Maybe he feels self-conscious,” John adds, stopping the pointless fight before it can start.

Brian squints. “Roger?” He glances over at the man in question currently trying to fight his way through the club crowd to get the next round… and being distracted by a rather lovely brunette. Brian’s jaw clenches and he makes a note to rescue him from infidelity before it gets too far. It’s no good cheating on Jo like that.

“That Roger?” Brian adds, dryly nodding to the blond in drunken pursuit. He notes both of their sharp looks and appreciates that he’s not the only one who takes their fidelity pact seriously. Fucking each other is an easy way to let off stress and avoid the temptations on the road… and the hate sex is amazing, as Roger was quick to point out when they started. They can’t let Roger off the wagon that easily.

Freddie’s long lips curl down thoughtfully. “You know, I think I agree with John. It’s not Roger’s flavor, but—”

“Not possible, more like!” Brian interrupts, shouting. “He knows exactly his effect, always has, the bloody bastard!”

He sits back down and quiets when they both shush him, but it’s hardly Brian’s fault Roger is irritating.

“Yes, but he hasn’t been wearing crop-tops,” Freddie points out. “Or any of those open shirts since that utter idiot told him to ‘suck it in.’”

Brian’s eyes quickly flicker over Roger, wearing a long loose floral shirt buttoned all the way up his chest. Brian thinks of Roger’s recent hesitation and withdrawal, the faint sensation that something is desperately wrong with the balance of the universe and perhaps they have tracked it down to the source.

There is something disappointing in glancing over Roger and not seeing the streaks of skin leading up his chest. That careless expression of free love, still looking the way music sounded in the 60s. Brazen, making Brian brazen as he remembers hiding in the backstage shadows, slipping a hand up Roger’s glittery black crop top and tweaking his nipple on Top of the Pops. Roger gasped then, looked back and seemed desperate for Brian in the way Brian always felt for all of them, for so many women. Brian felt powerful for once and above his own worries…

He blinks at his beer glass, frowns. It isn’t right that Roger feels self-conscious. Because he isn’t like them. Not like Freddie, who still bites his lip over teeth and plucks anxiously at the skin of his arm, as though it were all too much somehow, or John who only seems apace with himself when he dances, and a shy possessor of his flesh the rest of the time. And Brian who has tried to curl and bend himself smaller, make his hair _less,_ be less…

Roger isn’t like them. He’s made a home in his body, unfurled and staked the property. His body and mind don’t separate when he looks at pictures of himself, they don’t linger a beat outside of each other. Instead, they coexist, work for his goals, turn eyes and faces, and glitter in unison with a bright, intellectual light that draws any hungry eye.

And Brian is inexplicably furious that some idiotic, above-himself, foolish photographer might shake that stable base from him.

“If he is… self-conscious,” Brian says at length, and then stops as he realizes John and Freddie have continued talking while Brian was wrapped in his own thoughts.

They’ve long stopped chastising him for wandering. Freddie’s shoe kicks against his calf, welcoming him back.

“Leave it to me. I’ll sort him out,” Freddie promises, filling in all the gaps. He smiles, that proprietary self-assurance he wields over what he feels is his kingdom. Freddie’s own body might not be under that reign yet, but Brian, Roger, and John are. It’s a beautiful feeling, like momentum pulling objects through space. Effortless. Over it all John watches, eyes shifting. And Brian does trust them.

“I’ll take him back to the car,” Brian decides, doing his part.

Freddie pats his shoulder and stands. “It’ll do you some good to work off that pent-up irritation.” Louder, he calls, “Roger! Darling, who _is_ your enchanting little friend?”

+

John has been in the band long enough to know that Freddie plots. He’s been trapped in quite a few, talked his way out of more still. Freddie _wants_ , and he pursues those wants in conniving, little prods that wrap the desire around and around in layers until it can’t be seen or traced back to him. Like the want birthed from the earth, somehow, or came from a suburb no one’s heard of.

Through the dressing room mirror, John watches Freddie ply this practice. It starts with chambray.

“It doesn’t match,” Freddie says, wrestling the shirt from Roger’s grasp.

“It matches fine!” Still, the shirt is released with a huff. John darts his eyes down to meet Brian’s in the mirror as Roger pulls the loose robe tighter over his torso even in his irritation.

John had suspicions from the day of the photoshoot, when he pinched Roger’s soft, exposed hip and it jerked away. John laughed for the both of them, supplying Roger’s cue as Roger regained himself, could look less guarded for being touched.

Yes, John suspected, but he rarely feels it’s his place to discuss other’s business, even among band members. He prefers the steadiness of action. So he took Roger to an empty stairwell that day and went to his knees. It helped Roger relax into him, his hands loose and grateful pulling through John’s hair, but it didn’t resolve the whole issue. Though, John suspects it’s a culmination of many pressures at once, what will become of their shite finances, whether Queen will make it or not, whether they might fail and lose this easy acquaintance…

Roger says, “What about the embroidered velvet?”

“No, no, that’s too colorful! We’re doing the black and white side, darling. Contrast!” Freddie declares.

Roger frowns and digs through the suitcase bleeding out on the coffee table.

“Then this satin one. It’ll highlight your blazer and pair well with the pleats.”

“Brian and John are already wearing satin, it’s entirely too glossy with three of you. We’ll look like candy! Utterly tooth-rotting.”

John continues spraying the talc in Brian’s hair, soaking the lingering grease. His hands come and plump the curls, threading through the dense texture and touching the base of his neck. The pale stretch leads into the top of his shirt and defined swell of his Adam’s apple. They make an image in the mirror, John’s shiny, black-covered arms straightening Brian’s pleated satin while he does his nails. The angle emphasizes the defined slope of Brian’s nose and not for the first time John wonders how he came to know the turns of this face so well. Somehow, he thinks it’s Freddie’s fault…

“If you don’t like the jacquard or the chiffon what the bloody hell do you want?” Roger finally explodes, and John sighs as Freddie moves in for his kill.

Freddie pretends to search, as though he didn’t plant something just for this. He returns with a clutter of buildings, trees, and ducks pattered geometrically in silver sequins. Freddie’s eyes glitter like his own sequined blazer.

They would; the black knit doesn’t fasten or button.

Roger frowns. “It’s too sparkly, isn’t it? Shouldn’t we do a gold accent?”

“The silver will pick up hues from the satin,” Freddie disagrees. “I’m not wearing the right shade for gold… What are you doing?”

“It’s bloody cold! I’m getting a shirt to go under.” Roger begins pulling through the piles on the floor.

“Just go without, darling. That undershirt isn’t going to bloody match! It has to be the right hue for my black!”

“Oh, shove your hues—"

“Black is hardly a hue,” John provides, screwing the top on Brian’s nail polish in case things go flying.

Freddie and Roger turn, the tension slipping. John hitches his small smile a little higher.

“Scientifically speaking, it’s the absence,” Brian adds on, blowing on his nails.

“Not when I wear it!” Freddie disagrees, modeling and earning grins. “It’s saturated, darling!” The tension slips from Roger’s shoulders, the unwinding of screws.

John consciously focuses on scraping the dirt from his black platform boots as Roger half turns and slips the robe off and the loose knit on. John doesn’t know what he’s self-conscious about. His taut torso is lined with black and sequins for only a moment before the line is cut off when his arms cross firmly over his stomach.

“You look immaculate darling, we’ll knock them all out! This is the end of Top of the Pops!” Freddie effuses, fingers straightening Roger’s collar until he shifts away.

“…Let’s get this shoot over with,” Roger grumbles.

-

Roger doesn’t unfold in front of the camera the way he usually might. John senses Freddie’s frustration. His perfect ploy gone awry, his compliments unreceived. It puts him in a mood. Brian is always anxiously preoccupied in front of the camera, so John takes it upon himself to reach out.

“It’s better than performing on top of the Pops at least.”

“Anything is,” Roger agrees, brusque.

“Not that we can call what you do performing,” John jousts quickly. “You look like you’re auditioning for triangle player, the way you hit the cymbals.”

Roger laughs in perfect timing of the camera clicking. “Like you’re better. I look around and you’re behind the drum kit! Can the light operators even find you?”

“No. I imagine they’re looking for Deacon John,” he replies and smiles with the laughter. He loves laughing with Roger, Roger laughing at him, every iteration. There’s something brilliant in the reward that makes it easy for John to be forward instead of shy.

Roger doesn’t unwind his hands, but his smile is freer. His expression grows mocking and humorous as he plays his favorite archetype of the serious and glamourous rocker. By the end of the shoot, he’s all loosened up, at least emotionally.

“God,” he complains, rolling his shoulders as they head back to the cars. “I’m ready for a bite. Absolutely starved.”

Brian frowns. “Didn’t you eat before? While you ran to the bank?” Roger begged off group brunch to run errands before the shoot. They ate leisurely, Roger must have had two hours and yet…

Bloat. John connects the pieces even as Roger scoffs. He thought Roger looked particularly thin today, and an empty stomach until three would do that…

“The line was long!” Roger protests, but it hammers in the realization in Brian and Freddie.

“Roger…” Freddie bites his lip, the mild panic of fumbling with his words and never wanting to upset someone he’s dear to. Words he doesn’t know to say to himself. Roger isn’t looking for worry or attention though.

“Fish and chips?” John quickly suggests. “Your favorite place?”

“The chippy off Bond Street?” Roger asks.

“By Leicester Square,” John counters, and Roger smiles.

“That is my favorite,” he concedes, pleasure in his eyes at John knowing better than himself.

“Brian’s treat,” Freddie joins, regaining himself.

“Yes, because there’s nothing I’d rather spend my limited money on that Roger’s lunch,” Brian grouses. There’s no way Roger can say no to that.

Roger laughs. “You are a man of limited money and unlimited kindness, Bri.”

-

John scuffs his boots on the pavement before entering Roger's bedsit, although no one else does, not even Roger.

Roger sits down heavily at his little table, Freddie on his right, John his left, and Brian across. The paper-wrapped parcel wafts of fried fish and chips. Roger is hungry, from the flicker of his eyes. He still glances aside long enough to frown.

“If you all were going to come along, you could at least have ordered something.”

“I’m not made of money,” Brian protests.

“On your own wallets then, since Brian’s is mine. I hate eating alone,” Roger gripes.

“Yes, this is a lonely predicament you’re in,” Freddie muses, resting his chin on his folded fingers. Roger grins and finally peels back the paper.

Fried food spills out, a glisten of grease and salt and John sees Roger’s fingers twitch for just a moment. There’s a slight crease in his brow before he avoids eyes with John and then starts his… breakfast? Lunch? Or is it dinner? John is well-familiar with their inability to manage enough meals, the way they lean on their late-waking lifestyle to justify smearing two meals together or anything to cut off the corners of the three square they’re supposed to have. That was the stuff of childhood, or the electrician’s life that John let lean too far to the wayside. He should try and catch it before it slips all the way out the window, he thinks. He keeps telling himself that he will, any moment, when the band breaks… but he won’t be the one to break it. They went through six bassists looking for him. How could he leave after being so found?

Roger’s first bite sounds good, satisfying. It’s pointless staring, and so John listens to the shift of fingers and the sighs, chewing. There is something cathartic about witnessing Roger feed himself. It reminds John of Brian’s first meal out after the ulcer, when the diet of soft potatoes and bland oats was finally called off. He was truly desperate, hands almost shaking over the cheese toast and beans.

They make a similar study of not watching Roger. To become unseeing is a trick they’ve honed during their time together. They never watch Brian look for Peaches in the audience, or Roger’s quick flares of physical anger and the ambivalence after, or Freddie eyeing up men and only men. It’s manners, really. So much better to chat about inanities and distract from the relief of Roger eating.

Roger slows as he nears the end, a dwindling stack of chips remains. His immediate hunger is satiated, but the meagre excess seems to give him pause. It shouldn’t. John has seen Roger plough through whole pies when determined enough. But here he stares at the chips, a slight frown over his face. He doesn’t bar his stomach off with his arms but instead seeks shelter in the table… mostly. From his angle, John can see the way it steadily fills and falls further out between either end of the sequined knit. It’s supple, convex instead of concave and John thinks it’s good.

“Do you want any?” Roger asks.

“I’m alright,” John says.

Freddie adds, “I’m quite full from brunch.”

“The grease might be a bit too much for me, I’m afraid,” Brian apologizes.

Roger might be drumming his fingers on the table if they weren’t coated in a thin sheen of oil. Eventually, his lips twist and he accepts his fate. The last little bit is chewed and swallowed, and John isn’t watching, really. He just didn’t look away is all, as Roger’s hand lingers by his mouth, pink tongue scraping over his thumb as he wicks the grease.

John wishes he had more to give him. The band’s success keeps them fed, provides the money, and it is so scant and lean. He wishes all of them weren’t so bloody hungry…

His thoughts are punctured by Freddie’s hand catching Roger’s elbow. John holds his breath as Freddie’s grip slips down his elbow to cup his wrist and maneuver Roger’s hand nearer. When Freddie’s lips close over the tips of Roger’s index finger, John feels something in him sigh. For every moment he wonders what he’s doing in this band, entangled with these men, there are a dozen of these moments, vibrant and writhing.

Freddie sucks each finger clean, working his tongue and mouth expertly in a way John feels more than sees. His eyes bore into Roger, whose breathing picks up in direct response as a tongue slips up and around his pinky and sucks. It’s not hard reeling Roger in. He’s always looking for an excuse to unfold for pleasure. He has three here now.

Freddie comes off with a pop the echoes too many stage nights for John to feign total unaffectedness. Even Brian shifts where he sits, a familiar, intent heat molding his expression.

“Actually, I have rather found my appetite I think,” Freddie purrs. He arches into standing, uses Roger’s arm to guide himself behind Roger, and starts in on his neck.

Roger groans and leans back. They don’t always fuck all four of them away from tour. John wishes he weren’t so stirred by the idea. He wishes that the thin veneer of a fidelity pact were enough to let him lie to himself, but there is a fidelity of a whole different kind at play here. Something worse than the faceless women they might otherwise preoccupy themselves with. Though this isn’t love, instead some stranger complication, it's a poor comfort… but it’s hard to linger critically when Roger’s long neck swallows, all but thrown back. Bared for Freddie’s mouth to work.

Then, John sees him glance down, take in the spill of his stomach and then he’s standing and pulling away.

The arms come up and cross over himself.

“Dunno if I’m in the mood,” Roger says.

“Not in the mood?” Freddie demands, exasperated. Any other day he might fuss for water, but now… “You’ve been in the mood since you were bloody fifteen!”

“I have a headache,” Roger shoots back. “And you know, it’s not good to fuck after all this food. Just causes indigestion and bloating.”

Freddie’s mouth opens, but Brian speaks first.

“Roger…” He goes on more slowly. “You’re not bloated, you’re full. That’s how your stomach looks when you’re full.”

Redness covers Roger’s face, anger and embarrassment. “Yeah, too full to mess with all of you. It’s not…” He puffs out a frustrated breath, eyes flitting between them. “All this. The shirt and the chips. You’re all being ridiculous.”

John might’ve figured Roger would see through them. He’s the most familiar with Freddie’s plots and John’s quiet redirection.

“We’re being ridiculous?” Brian demands standing up, as he always does when Roger riles him. “How about you, skipping food?”

“I _waited_ to eat because I care about our image not being glutted rock stars!”

“And now?” John asks, quietly getting to his feet. “There’s no one watching but us.” The words seem to lance Roger, who breathes hard and looks away.

“Am I the only one who cares about the band’s image?” Roger demands. “No bloody wonder we don’t have a better record deal!” His hands would be flying normally. Instead, they tremble with adrenaline and anger at his sides. “I’m not going to let us miss out on making it for something as stupid as… as…" Roger’s mouth grinds shut.

“We’re not going to lose out on anything for a little weight,” John says.

Roger looks paler for it being uttered aloud.

“It is just a little,” Brian promises. “No one would notice if they weren’t…”

“Fucking you,” Freddie finishes, glee at his own crassness lighting up his face. “I guess that’s what it was. The poor assistant just wanted a fuck with dear Rog… I can relate, can’t you?”

John has watched Freddie’s careful approach, but Roger seems startled by the hand that slips up and down his side. Freddie dodges past the cloth, trails his hand over skin and stomach, pokes the tips of black fingernails into Roger’s tight trousers. 

“When he isn’t being irritating,” Brian mutters. His eyes betray a different story as they watch Freddie’s hand toying with the trouser band.

“It won’t be little weight if we fail,” Roger says, lips twisting even as he leans into Freddie’s hand.

“We won’t fail,” Freddie says in perfect assurance. “We’re sex on eight legs, or haven’t you figured that out yet? Even when Brian’s lost weight from an ulcer or you have…” he breathes deeply for a moment, fingers coming to squeeze Roger’s slight overflow of hip. His voice is hoarser, and John watches his eyes glow. “When you have more to grip.”

Roger shifts so Freddie’s fingers explore lower, safer spaces. The black nails obligingly shimmy between the skintight material of his trousers until Roger gasps. His squared elbows lose shape and his chin drops to his chest as Freddie’s hand slowly moves under the trouser cloth, meeting the bulge swelling on the left of his thigh. Hair spills over Roger’s shoulders and he makes the gasp of pain and irritation he always makes when Freddie digs into the slit of his cockhead with his nail.

John can’t help but be drawn into Roger’s unwinding. Their arguments used to end in harsh words and slammed doors, but so often these days they conclude with coming together and apart.

Brian approaches softly, brushing up behind Roger. It’s the only time John sees him assume his full height, when he has one of them in front of him. He can loom like their personal weeping willow. His hands clutch Roger’s hips, fingers grasping and pale against Roger’s sun-bathed skin. The thumbs dig into the swell of his stomach and the slight jerk of his body tells John Brian’s working himself up against Roger’s arse. From this angle, Brian has a view of all of them, quick eyes working beneath the shadow of hair.

John always waits until everyone’s taken their places before he slots himself in. There’s history between those three, a rhythm that existed before John. The way Roger casts his head back and half glares as Brian ruts against him, mocking almost. It makes Brian swear and piston harder. Freddie’s proprietary stake over Roger’s cock, the hisses he elicits… It leaves Roger’s mouth for John. He can work with that.

John sidles up to Roger’s right, turns his head and brushes the streaks of bronzy hair from his face. His eyes are beautiful like this, dilated. The black a sudden deep place among the ocean of his iris. John leans in and kisses him.

He tastes like fish and chips, salty and fed. Roger tends to take charge when they kiss, led on by his own hunger. Right now, the assault on all sides has him open-mouthed and panting into John. Sloppy. John takes the lead on the beat between them. He slips his tongue in, lets Roger’s open mouth get messy and slick. John sighs when Roger whimpers, the sound soft sensation on his skin.

The loud pull of a zip doesn’t surprise John. The sound of two zips is more startling. When he pulls back to suck into Roger’s jaw, he sees Freddie and Roger’s trousers pooled on the floor. Freddie’s cock protrudes shamelessly. He leads Roger’s hand away from its half-curled place on his stomach and drags it over the top of his cock.

Roger fumbles the head and precome beads prettily.

“You’re not just going to leave John out in the cold, are you?” Freddie asks, eyes flickering up. They glow in these moments, dark and shining. Conniving. “Give it to him, John. Roger can multitask.”

Roger’s head tilts as he watches John sort his own trousers, aroused and amused. “I knew you were a filthy bastard, Fred. But dragging John into this?”

John grunts when Roger lines both his and Fred’s cocks up. He uses one hand to tether them at the base and the other he twists around both heads. The first slide hurts, full of friction, but it aches pleasurably too. Soon the pre-come spreads and smooths. He swears and Roger coos. John feels hot and so caught up between all of them. Freddie’s slick cock and Roger’s deft hands, Brian’s pulsing.

Head slow, John belatedly answers. “Brian is the only pure one among us.”

Roger laughs, a cackle that ceases when Brian jerks against him particularly hard. The momentum judders Roger’s arms too, travels over John and Freddie’s cocks and it’s exhilarating, this feedback. Like jamming. Roger working double-handed and Freddie’s pistoning of Roger’s own cock. Brian in a tempo of his own that climbs up and down with his groaning, hair bouncing. Almost too worked up and in his head for words.

Left unguarded and unprotected is Roger’s stomach, which Brian’s long fingers palm the edges of on occasion.

It is soft. John doesn’t linger over bigger bodies and fat bottoms the way he’s noticed Brian and Freddie do on occasion. But there’s something about it that suits Roger, something comfortable and appealing. A daub on his flesh that reflects his stubborn dislike of pointless exercise, his pursuit of pleasure. It is sexy, John thinks.

His hand wanders and presses open-palmed on his stomach.

Roger stutters in his pace as he glances down to see John’s hand stroking his curved core. Red covers his face, but they’re all too stripped back for anger to rescue him. Instead, blunt, vulnerable embarrassment sweeps his expression without respite. He heaves a breath in reflex, seeking to hide.

“Don’t suck in,” Brian murmurs over his head. “Fuck, Roger.” He pushes into him hard. Roger’s too worked up to conserve breath and it falls out of him. His stomach leans further into John’s hand.

Freddie watches it all, jerks Roger harder to make him cry out.

“You think this is full? One day we’ll be glutted with success, all of us!” Freddie declares. “You’ll be overflowing then.”

“Shitting gold records,” John murmurs.

Roger huffs and laughs. He surrenders shame to their combined clamour, and John can understand it. The red flush diffuses and blurs with pleasure as his eyes fall shut. Roger pushes himself harder into Freddie’s hand, back up against Brian. His face mangles for a moment. A near airless moan escapes him and he spills over himself, over Freddie’s hand.

His own hand falls off the moment John starts coming. John hastily jerks himself through the last of it to save the orgasm, letting it catch on Roger’s torso and the crowd of their thighs. Freddie’s own orgasm spills in beads over them, a mess.

Roger’s is a breathless stillness, John notices as he comes down. Brian’s come then as well.

“Brian, did you come in your pants?” John asks, his first coherent thought.

“No.” Roger grimaces, turning to look at his own backside which is splattered like his front. Brian kicks his trousers and pants off, half-abashed as Roger’s nose turns up. The ground is similarly messy and Roger steps on Brian’s trousers and uses them to mop their mess up.

Brian curses. “Oh, fucking hell, Rog.”

Roger grins. The open, sequined knit dangles down one shoulder, showing the mess of him, the curve of his splattered stomach.

John realizes they’re all looking Roger up and down when his face covers with a blush. He usually smiles to be so seen. He usually postures and makes a show of seduction. Now he only flushes, half-uncertain, before managing a small smile.

“Well,” he starts, voice almost hoarse. “Well, fine.”

+

Roger wakes bleary and dazed. Too much movement, too many bodies in his bed. It doesn’t bloody fit four men. He’s said before. Brian suggested Roger be the one to take the couch then. As bloody if.

“I didn’t think this was covered in the fidelity pact,” Brian says, voice floaty above Roger’s half-waking and closed eyes. “All four of us doing it here, I mean.”

“Well,” Freddie demurs. “These were… extenuating circumstances, rather.” It doesn’t sound like he’s trying very hard to persuade any of them. Roger’s stopped a long time ago. It’s just good sense and dirty fun. Real rock and roll.

“Who exactly makes the rules?” John asks, and Roger can sense his smile.

Brian, always with an answer, says, “Whoever started it, just like with lyrics and song-rights.”

“Then you can make it however you like, darling,” Freddie says.

“Me? It was John who started it.”

John scoffs. “I joined last, how could it have been me? I’d only known you for a year. I’d have to be a sex maniac to suggest this to people I only just met. I was dragged in.”

There’s a hand that squeezes on Roger’s stomach, warm. It’s not full, just the stubborn soft lip of fat again. He could shift out of the grip but… It’s an appreciative caress, just like before. His stomach doesn’t feel hideous the way it had earlier in the day, pouring out of him and separate. Now it’s just part of his shape, one that’s chased on all sides by flesh and bodies and Roger doesn’t have anything to complain about, really.

“Yes, and you were so unwilling,” Brian deadpans.

“We can accept that there are things we may never know… or we can blame Roger,” Freddie decides, the turncoat.

“I might have expected a mutiny in my own bed,” Roger rasps, finally cracking his eyes open.

The hand freezes on his stomach, but Roger only stretches out further. What’s there to hide? He’ll get no peace with this lot.

“Now for the real question; are we doling out blame or credit?” Roger asks and enjoys the bounty of stumped and delighted looks this earns him.

**Author's Note:**

> .  
> .  
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> .  
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> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ I have no defense. [the sequined knit in question](https://64.media.tumblr.com/f60935259a06a972608283e0a07c9c92/tumblr_nv9690Z8qy1st208eo1_500.png) and [the full photoshoot.](https://queenphotos.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/queen-in-top-of-the-pops/)
> 
> thank you for taking the time to read this💖. feel free to share thoughts if you like below~🙇
> 
> or hmu on [TUMBLR](https://rock-it-tonight.tumblr.com/)


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